More than 220 troops at San Antonio’s Lackland Air Force Base have contracted influenza, and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are assigning blame for the outbreak to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
The upsurge in flu cases at the Alamo City site — the nation’s biggest military base by population at 67,000 service members — comes two months after Hegseth declared that annual influenza vaccines would no longer be mandatory for military personnel.
“After Secretary Hegseth scrapped the military’s flu vaccine mandate, it was only a matter of time before an outbreak occurred,” Congressman Joaquin Castro, D-San Antonio, tweeted Friday. “It was a reckless decision that put troops in harm’s way and undermined our military readiness.”…